Stuff

People blog, so I don’t have to.

First, James at Speculative Horizons declares that reviewers should post their reviews to Amazon:

So many books are bought online these days, yet the standard of customer reviews is shocking (did anyone from Amazon even check this review? Doesn’t look like it). Sure, I imagine it must be tough moderating so many reviews, but if you’re going to do it then it should be done properly. Permitting people to post 5-star reviews of a book’s physical properties is a joke. There are all sorts of horror stories from people who bought a book as a result of dreadful (or even fake) reviews.

This is why I now post all my reviews on Amazon, and why I think all reviewers and serious readers should do the same. It’s important to try and drive up the quality of the reviews available. If each new release has four or five well-written reviews attached to it from prominent members of the online genre community (or from anyone that can write a considered review), then it’s offering consumers a far better idea of what to expect from the product.

And I agree. Change can only come when people get involved, and all levels of input can really help raise standards, or at the very least filter out the crap.

William Burroughs wrote a graphic novel:

A quest for immortality, the Mayan Death God and a billionaire newspaper tycoon: William Burroughs’s only venture into graphic novels, abandoned almost 40 years ago, is set to be published in its entirety for the first time next year.

The Naked Lunch author began work on Ah Pook Is Here with artist Malcolm McNeill in 1970, when the story appeared as a monthly comic strip in the English magazine Cyclops. After the magazine folded, they worked to develop the concept into into a full-length book, which they dubbed a “Word/Image novel” because the term graphic novel had yet to be coined. But no publisher was interested, and after working on the book for seven years the pair eventually abandoned it.

People are surprised that James Patterson, otherwise known as a book factory of co-writers, is one of the most successful authors of recent times:

James Patterson is the biggest “bride” of the UK book world. According an analysis of Nielsen BookScan charts since records began in 1998, the American author has penned the most chart-toppers, ahead of Danielle Steel in second place, Patricia Cornwell in third and Terry Pratchett in fourth.